


Into Darkness

by ScarletSapphire



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 11:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11356821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletSapphire/pseuds/ScarletSapphire
Summary: Phil becomes concerned when Dan starts acting strangely. Turns out there's a reasonable explanation for his weird behaviour but is that all there is to it? Or is there more to the story?Inspired by Dan and Phils craft videos.





	Into Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Heaven Help Us](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10518183) by [parentaladvisorybullshitcontent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent/pseuds/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent). 



> This is a work of fiction. Will contain mentions of self harm.

Into Darkness  
I had begun to worry about him for quite some time. Although, thinking back, it was impossible to pinpoint the exact moment I knew something was wrong. I could just sense that he had started on a slow, gradual decline long before the warning signs started to appear. Whatever descent he was on this time, it felt different than the rapid, all destroying tornado he got caught up in last time.  
When the red flags did start popping up like trail marks in a forest, they were subtle. We’d be watching our favourite TV shows and he’d just zone out while staring blankly at the screen for several minutes at a time. I only noticed this if I laughed or made some comment about a particular part of the show only to be met with confused eyes and a demand to explain what he missed. The zoning out did seem to get more frequent and occur for longer stretches of time as his downfall continued; I got the impression that whole episodes or whole films went by without any singular plot point registering with him.  
The other signs became progressively more worrying, I’d come find him in his bedroom or in our lounge after I had been occupied for a few hours films or editing videos or just generally procrastinating on my own, not realising several hours had passed since I last seen him or heard him make a noise in flat, only to find him just sitting bolt upright, staring straight ahead. When I questioned him on this he just nonchalantly informed me he was thinking. Thinking about what he refused to elaborate on.  
Spontaneously he took up playing piano again, which at first I mistook for a good sign rather than the bad omen it was. His playing quickly escalated to almost obsessive levels. He would sit for hours upon hours playing several long melancholy melodies over and over again. They were indeed beautiful at times; a mix of fast and slow paced notes that rose and fell together perfectly before building into something that sounded almost sinister. I can’t compare the melodies to anything because it was unlike anything I had ever heard. When I questioned him on their origin he just shrugged his shoulders claiming flatly that he once heard them somewhere but couldn’t recall where; perhaps in a dream. The songs became like a sort of background soundtrack to my daily life. If he wasn’t filming videos, or editing, or staring mindlessly at the TV or just generally staring blankly into space, he was playing that goddam piano. Eventually I was able to start zoning out the insistent music so when he did abruptly stop playing I would not be aware of how long he would then sit immobile at the piano bench, that dead stair fixed firmly in his eyes, fingers poised motionless over the ivory keys. Other times he would announce the conclusion of his fanatical session violently with the sound of shattering notes, several high-pitched keys smashed in unison, followed by a dramatic slamming of the lid for good measure.  
He started to become peculiar about food as well; this is when my concern for his wellbeing amplified. We would participate in the normal ritual of preparing and cooking a meal as if nothing was wrong but the moment we sat down to gorge ourselves he would proceed to just push his food around the plate for the duration of the meal, occasionally chancing a small bite before noticeably grimacing.  
“You have to eat.” I told him in my most non-confrontational voice while avoiding eye contact, the last thing I wanted to do was trigger him into accusing me of nagging again. Those hurtful accusations had flown freely from his lips often the last time he dropped into a pit of depression, any attempt to help him or any act of kindness had been harshly rebutted.  
“I’m thinking of giving vegetarianism another go.” He replied, also avoiding eye contact, focusing his attention on pushing around a piece of chicken with his fork.  
“How come?”  
“Don’t know,” a characteristic shrug accompanied this, “meat just sort of grosses me out right now. It’s like chewing on lumps of dead flesh you know.” Hastily he pushed back from the table, scraping the chair harshly against the titles, to return to his obsessive piano playing behind a slammed door. Leaving me alone to stare at the lumps of dead flesh he had stabbed violently with a fork on his untouched plate.  
I couldn’t tell if he was sleeping much or not. Neither of us kept a healthy sleep schedule, barely a night would pass without at least one of us being awake at 3am, wasting time online. Our unconventional career choice was to blame for nurturing these horrendous sleeping habits. It had been a while since I had heard his heavy footsteps that mirrored his heavy thoughts pacing endlessly up and down the length of his bedroom in the early hours of the morning as the rest of London slumbered. Occasionally I would find him in the morning time laying lifelessly fully dressed on the sofa in our lounge, his phone or laptop discarded on the coffee table, giving me the impression that he had been there all night.  
I was divided. Part of me knew I should say something, as his best friend I felt obligated to speak up when I could tell something was very, very off in his head. I should be the one to voice my concerns about this destructive destination he was heading towards. But the other part of me was a coward and feared his reaction. Last time he showed nothing but animosity and aggression towards all my attempts to reach out to him. He severed all the life lines I cast out to him. I was convinced for months that I was going to lose him as a friend, he acted as if he hated me right up until the end when he broke down in hysterical tears on the cold kitchen floor of our old Manchester apartment. I didn’t want the conflict. So I selfishly chose to ignore his increasingly strange behaviour. Instead I focused my energy on convincing myself that he was just going through a stressful or gloomy phase that would pass with time. I lied and lied to myself, ignoring the issues until something happened that I had to face up to.  
One night just before four in the morning I was harshly ejected from the dead dreamless sleep I had recently slipped into by an almost inhuman screech accompanied by one large thump that sounded like it sent shards of glass flying to land with individual clinks upon a hard floor; each one hitting the ground with a peculiar clarity. I bolted upright in my bed, hesitating for only a few seconds out of fear of an intruder, before jumping out of my bed, grabbing my glasses shoving them haphazardly on my face, and making my way as fast as my sleep filled body would carry me to the source of the commotion which was coming from the bathroom. The door was ajar but no light was filtering through. I carefully swung the door fully open, clutching for the light cord and calling my flatmates name at the same time.  
“Oh my god.” I squeaked as the blinding overhead light revealed the bloody scene before my wincing eyes. My flatmate was standing in front of the sink glad in a long sleeved pyjama top and sweats, his fist raised and bloodied, fat droplets of blood falling silently onto the white tiles by his feet. He was shaking, breathing hard, and staring into the mirror, now splintered in shards radiating outwards from a central impact zone created by his fist.  
“What happened?!” I demanded, grabbing his injured hand to assess the damage. He didn’t reply. He just stood there panting and blinking rapidly as if trying to clear some unpleasant image from his vision. “I need to get the first aid kit.” I announced more to myself than my stunned friend. He allowed me to manoeuvre him to sit on the closed toilet seat so I could kneel in front of him and tend to the fragments of glass lodged in his bleeding knuckles.  
“I’m… I’...” his attempt to speak was almost overturned by the emotion or panic living in his throat but he seemed to swallow it as I finished bandaging him up. “I’m sorry.”  
“Don’t worry, it’s okay now.” I soothed. What else was I meant to say? He had already ignored my questioning of what in the world could have conspired to make him want to punch the bathroom mirror. I didn’t want to push him any more when he was clearly distressed. “Let’s get you back to bed.”  
I was able to usher him out into the hallway, my hand resting firmly on his shoulder. When we reached the door of his room however, he stopped dead in his tracks. A look of fear mixed with embarrassment passed over his face.  
“Can I…?” he started but didn’t finish, his words drifted off in the direction his finger was pointing towards my bedroom.  
“Of course.” I didn’t even have to think about my response. In our almost eight years of friendship we had shared a bed many times before. Sometimes accidentally, late night conversations or movie sessions ending unexpectedly with closed eyes and deep breathing. Or sometimes it was by design and desire that we ended up in the same bed together…  
“I’m worried about you.” I spoke into the darkness as we lay on our backs under my colourful duvet, his injured hand resting above the covers. His eyes directed upwards as if stargazing rather than staring into an abbess of darkness. He didn’t reply, the silence spoke for him. “I just hope you know you can talk to me.” The sound of silence continued to fill my ears. Just as I was about to turn away from him he finally interrupted the silence with a flat detached tone.  
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want to put you through all this.”  
“I’m here for you, we can deal with this together.” I replied laying my hand on his arm noticing for the first time how cold he felt even through his clothes. “Try to sleep, you need to rest. We can talk it all out in the morning.”  
We didn’t get an opportunity to talk when morning came. I awoke to find the covers on his side of the bed thrown back in a messy fashion. The bed was empty and so was the flat. Wherever he had gone he had left his phone laying on the coffee table so I had no way of contacting him. To say I was worried when enough time passed to rule out him just popping out for a coffee or something, was an understatement. Time passed slowly. I jumped every time I heard someone entre the apartment complex, straining my ears for footsteps on our stairs that didn’t materialise. It wasn’t until well after midnight before he eventually returned, the slamming of the front door acting as an announcement of his arrival. I called his name from my position on the sofa where I was half dozing. I listened as his footsteps travelled straight to his bedroom. The door of which he didn’t slam which I took to mean that I could go speak to him. He was lying flat on his back on the bed, long jean clad legs hanging off the edge, his natural hair was wilder than usual having being styled by the harsh London wind. I wanted to demand to know where he had been and why he thought it was okay to take off like that leaving me to worry and fret over his wellbeing all day. Instead I meekly asked if he was okay.  
“Get out.” Was his only reply in a flat emotionless voice.  
“Listen, I’m only saying this because I care able you but-“  
I was abruptly cut short by my flatmate springing upwards suddenly and roaring at me in a voice that was not entirely his own, it was louder, coarser and had an unfamiliar ragged edge that covered his usual polite inclination. “I said get out!” His brown eyes seemed to blaze in rage before my own. Frightened by his uncharacteristic outburst I stumbled backwards, retreating to the safety of my locked bedroom. Now was definitely not the time for talking. I doubted it ever would be.  
We avoided each other over the following days. This was more reminiscent to how things were last time. Not speaking. Leaving a room as the other entered. Avoiding all forms of communication including making eye contact. Living in the same space but existing in separate worlds.  
He had quit with the excessive piano playing. I guessed his injured hand prevented the dexterity needed to play such intricate, haunting melodies. Instead he took to just sitting at the piano bench, unseeing eyes pointed at the silent keys. His absences became longer. Most nights he would leave the flat and disappear into London to do god knows what with god knows who. I would hear him returning with the sounds of rapid footsteps and slamming doors.  
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what was wrong, what had happened to send him into this dark space. I had to do something. I didn’t want to confront him. I mainly didn’t want to lose him, the small bolt of fear that accompanied any thought of him not being in my life scared me. It was worrying the extent to which my life, carer and overall happiness was tied to this one person. I didn’t realise how much of me depended on him. I just couldn’t stand by and watch him sink further and further into this self-destructive vortex. My moral compass didn’t allow for me to take the route of a bystander. Not with matters concerning him anyway. I hadn’t realised how long I had been sitting still on the sofa pondering what my options were, his strange habits were starting to rub off on me. I didn’t think trying to talk to him directly again was a good idea, not if I didn’t want my head ripped off again. I knew I would never stand a chance of forgiveness if I spoke to his parents behind his back. Their relationship was strained enough as it is. He certainly wouldn’t want any of our friends to know his business, he’s such a private person; we both are. I supposed there was always the options of helplines and such. I just wasn’t sure how to go about any of this.  
My pointless pondering was interrupted by his return from wherever he had ran off to in an attempt to escape whatever demon ails him. He paused in the door way of the lounge long enough for each of us to take in the others appearance and location. Whatever internal turmoil was ragging within him right now, it hadn’t affected his sense of style. He looked great as always, in black skinny jeans, black boots, a plain black t topped off with his old leather jacket of which each wear and tear upon its surface telling a different story. He had apparently made an effort in straightening his chocolate hair so his fringe fell slightly into his eyes. The second he turned to leave a fleeting bolt of confidence launched me into a standing position. “Wait!” I yelled, causing him to pause, his back to me now, fingers ghosting over the door frame. “This can’t go on like this. I don’t know what’s wrong but we can’t let this go on, it isn’t healthy.” My confidence was retreating with every word. “You can’t treat yourself or me like this.”  
His broad shoulders rose briefly before falling as he inhaled loudly. His fingers curling around the door frame as he spoke. “You need to drop this.” His voice had a barely contained edge to it.  
“No, I won’t drop it this time. We need to-“ my words were interrupted once again this time by him spinning on his heel so quickly that I almost missed it, and marching rapidly towards me with that dark look in his eyes again. Oh god, was he going to hit me? I had never known him to be a violent person but with that look in his eyes anything was possible. I backed up until I hit the wall, making a conscious effort to keep my hands firmly at my sides not wanting to take up either a defensive or aggressive stance. He stopped in front of me, hands reaching outwards, my heart gave a hard thump against my chest as they tightly fisted my shirt collar. His breathing was strained almost as if he was fighting a bubbling panic within himself, but his eyes still held that furious fire. I was almost frightened. Something I had never been with him. Before I could decide how to react or compose the words to tell him to get off me, he did something more than if he had punched me. With one swift motion, he closed the gap between our bodies by smashing his lips to mine with a hunger that shook me. The kiss was brief but affecting.  
“What the-“I started but couldn’t finish as he immediately reattached his mouth to mine, this time probing my lips and mouth with his tongue. He tasted vaguely of smoke; a half-formed question of whether he had taken up smoking flittered across my mind but I was mostly concerned with why he was kissing me and more importantly, why I was reciprocating. We had kissed before, mostly in sloppy drunken moments or late night pecks that screamed of unspoken longing, mostly the former, each time blurring a part of that thick line between friendship and something else, each time conveniently forgotten in the harsh reality of morning. He ended the kiss dropping his hands from my shirt and resting his forehead on my shoulder. I placed my hands tentatively on his waist almost as if he was the one who needed to be steadied when it was me who was trembling and in fear of collapsing.  
“Is this why you have been acting weird?” my voice barely a whisper.  
“Yes.” Came an equally quiet response after a long stretch of hesitation. “I don’t want to ruin what we already have. I don’t want to lose you.”  
“You won’t,” I promised with no hesitation as I wrapped my arms tightly around him, “you won’t.”  
For the next few weeks thing’s improved tenfold for us. It had always been so easy for us to be best friends almost from the moment we met so it shouldn’t have surprised me how easy it was being- well whatever we were now- we didn’t exactly label it because I don’t think either of us knew exactly what it was. I didn’t exactly understand it to be honest, we were best friends, more than that, closer to each other than anyone else in the world, so it was natural progression to love someone one, right? I tried not to examine it too closely. What mattered is that we were together and happy together. He was practically back to normal, all his destructive behaviours had stopped as far as I could see, and he stopped disappearing for hours at a time, stopped spacing out and hadn’t even glanced at his piano. We were laughing, chatting, hanging out, and filming videos like nothing had changed. A few things were different but that was because of the obvious and there were things I newly discovered about him. He was incredibly affectionate, always wanting to be in contact with me in some way. I wasn’t complaining but it did mean filming and editing videos took twice as long now.  
Basically everything was going spectacularly well until everything went spectacularly wrong.  
_______________________________________________________________________________  
“I made you a hot chocolate.” He announced one night entering my (our?) room; he hardly spent any time in his room, only brief excursions to retrieve some variation of black clothing from his wardrobe.  
“Aw thanks.” I replied laying the book I had been reading flat on my chest, “Are you coming to bed soon?”  
“In a little while, I want to work on the gaming video a bit more.” He lent down to place a chaste kiss on my lips  
“Kay, don’t be too long.” I told him as I unsuccessfully tried to deepen the kiss only managing to catch his bottom lip between my teeth before he gently pulled away.  
“You’re such a distraction.” He told me in a playful tone before straightening up and slipping through the partially open door.  
I listened to his footsteps making his way up the short flight of stairs outside my door to our shared office and then went back to reading my book and draining the entirety of that large hot chocolate. I must have nodded off which wasn’t unusual, what was unusual was how I woke up. I awoke an undefined amount of time later with a throbbing headache, my glasses shoved uncomfortably against my face. The bedroom was in total darkness, lights switched off, curtains drawn tight, door firmly shut. This was not how I left the room. I had no memory of doing any of this, my book was discarded on my chest and I was still lying on top of the covers. My first thought was that my companion had come to bed but my outreaching arm failed to locate another body. I also couldn’t find my phone which was always within 2 cm of my grasp, further adding to my disorientation. I stood up only to be met with a wave of dizziness. I didn’t feel like I had drifted off peacefully; I felt like I had been knocked out with a sledge hammer. I carefully made my way to the hall, using the walls a walking aids.  
I found the hallway and the stairs leading up to the office in equal darkness making it unlikely that my friend was up there editing. Something within me warned me not to call out to him. No lights seemed to be on anywhere in the flat however the door to the longue was ever so slightly ajar. It was hard to tell through the fog that had gathered in my head but I thought I could hear something coming from that direction. The flat suddenly seemed extremely warm, an oppressive heat that created an atmosphere that was difficult to breathe in. Had one of us left the heating on? I pondered as I made my way cautiously towards the door, all the while willing the floor boards not to creak. As I peeked through the door I could see, via the aid of a shaft of sliver moonlight streaming from the large bay window whose binds had not been drawn, my flatmate sitting on his knees on the floor, his exposed back towards me. He appeared to only be wearing his black boxer shorts. His hands where making rhythmic motion in front of him which was mirrored in the movements of the muscles of his long back. His head was thrown back dramatically, eyes tightly shut, the moans escaping his lips were now of a scarily familiar intimacy. This was fine. Weird but fine. What enraged me, caused me to become uncharacteristically livid, was what or who I couldn’t see. In the arm chair placed directly in front of his writhing body, cast completely in darkness yet outlined clearly for me to see, was a man reclining at ease. I could already tell he was a tall man with his long torso and legs elegantly crossed with what appeared to be pointy cowboy boots attached to their ends. His frame filled the entire armchair, he would have been a much taller and broader man than me or my flatmates 6’3 frame. What appeared to be a Stetson adorned his head, one long arm was resting on the arm of the chair while the other disappeared up towards his face; I imagined for I could not see long bony fingers resting on his lips. He was sitting deathly still just observing the man in front of him who did not once cease or slow his activity. The strange man had an invisible aura around him, a heavy, intimating atmosphere that made me not want to enter the room. But my anger was greater than that. Had my supposed best friend of eight years been playing me? Fooling me into thinking he loved me while his secret boyfriend and him had a good laugh at my expense. Or had he ensured I was out of it so he could call over some fuckboy to cheat on me with? I was not going to stand for this, especially not in our apartment, right under my nose.  
“What the hell is going on here?!” I yell as forcefully as I can, not accounting for the drowsiness still coating my throat. I burst through the lounge door simultaneously slamming the light switch into an on position, momentarily blinding myself as the harsh white light spread out in ripples across the room. The beams of light settled quickly into stillness as my eyes adjusted but the scene revealed before me made no sense but brought a tight feeling of panic and horror to my chest.  
My flatmate had immediately halted his actions but remained motionless, eyes tightly shut, mouth partially open mid moan. He was completely still and undisturbed; unlike me. I was about to have a full blown panic attack. This couldn’t be real, I kept thinking as I rushed over to him, sinking down on the floor beside him; this must be a dream. A nightmare.  
“D-“ His name got stuck in my mouth, I was tremblingly so badly. I placed my hand tentatively on his shoulder feeling his skin burning beneath my own that was chilled by terror. This was enough to finally awaken him from his daze. His eyes snapped open, moving rapidly around the room before settling on my face that I’m sure was screwed up in anxiety. He opened his mouth as if to speak but a look of exorbitant pain finally crossed his face. He glanced down at his mangled thighs, the source of his anguish. A scream of pain rather than words escaped from his open mouth as the sharp blade in his hand clattered to the floor. Blood flowed in slow rivulets from the deeper wounds and coagulated in tiny dots along the seams of the smaller cuts. I knew I should have been saying something to him, taking some sort of proactive action like checking if any of the self-inflicted wounds needed stiches or even trying to stop the bleeding of the worst ones. But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even look at him. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the arm chair in front of us. My eyes should have been fixated on the face of the stranger in the room. But instead all I was staring at was the worn fabric of the chair. The arm chair was completely empty. We were alone. But it didn’t feel like it.  
______________________________________________________________________________  
“You need to talk to someone. Someone who knows how to help you.” I said to my flatmate several hours later when his wounds were cleaned up and his tears had finally stopped. “This can’t go on.”  
“I know.” His voice was barely audible, his throat was still probably raw from his screams.  
“Why didn’t you tell me things were this bad?” a hint of emotion threatening to sneak into my words, trying to derail them. I pushed it aside. I had to be strong for him.  
“I didn’t know how bad things were.” At the time that seemed like the most idiotic reply ever. He must have known. He must have been hiding so much torment from me.  
“It’s okay. You just need to talk to someone.”  
“I will.”  
Then there was silence for a long, long time, I was trying to gather the courage to broach the next topic.  
“Th- there was someone in the room, with you?” this time it was my voice that was a whisper. I turned to look at him in the warm glow of the bedside lap. Neither of us wanted to be in the darkness right now.  
I expected him to raise his eyebrow in perplexment and ask me what I was on about. Of course, there was nobody there; how stupid could I be. Instead he swallowed hard before replying, keeping his eyes fixed on the celling. “You seen him?”  
I swear my blood ran cold at those words. Why did I even ask. Why didn’t I just continue in blissful ignorance. I didn’t want to deal with this. “Let’s get some sleep!” I announced quickly, turning on my side away from him.  
Again, silence prevailed for a long time. I thought he had fallen asleep but his quiet, flat voice broke the stillness once again;  
“He likes you.”  
I was too terrified to reply.  
_________________________________________________________________________________  
In all fairness to him the next day he did sit down in front of me to make the appointment with his doctor. I hugged him tight and said I was proud of him for doing that. I figured I needed to be more openly supportive, last night I had been too shocked and afraid to say the right things. I felt a small glimmer of hope that maybe things could get better. Maybe he would get the help he needed. Maybe we would both be ok.  
How wrong I was.  
Later that same day he came to me as I was sitting on the couch browsing the web in an attempt to distract myself from everything that was going on. I was failing miserably, my mind kept flashing back to the sight of all the blood there had been and the sight of that empty chair.  
“You know tomorrow is the first of April, right?” He said, his voice having recovered almost completely.  
“Yeah. What about it?” I responded absentmindedly.  
“Well shouldn’t we make a craft video? Everyone is expecting it.”  
At that my eyes shot from the screen to his face that looked remarkably composed, as if nothing had happened last night.  
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We can’t just sit in front of the camera and pretend like everything is normal.”  
“It’s a lot better to pretend that things are normal than to sit here and wallow in the fact that they’re not.” He did have a point. “Please, I really want to do this and I already have the perfect idea for the video.”  
“Ugh fine.” I sighed shutting my laptop, “What stupid supplies are we going to need for this video?”  
I was surprised to learn how much pre-planning he seemed to have done for this video, usually we just wing it on the day, relying on obvious bad acting and improv to keep it flowing. But this time he already had a list of supplies I needed to go out and gather as well as a finished concept and basic play-by-play script composed.  
“I’m back.” I called as I shut the front door having returned from my brief excursion to the shops  
“Come into the kitchen, everything is set up.”  
I made my way toward the kitchen, pausing to take off my jacket, it seemed very warm in the flat again today. In the kitchen, my flatmate had moved our table to face the blank back wall and positioned our camera and bright filming lights in front of it.  
“Don’t you want to have some lunch before we start?” I asked as I unpacked the supplies and began placing all our props on the table,  
“No, the sooner we do this the better.” My friend seemed a little buzzed which wasn’t unusual before filming a video like this; we both wanted to portray a strong energy to our audience and that required us to slip into a sort of persona. Although I was mildly concerned with how easily and deeply he seemed to slip into it this time. His unnaturally upbeat voice never wavering even when I broke character to laugh at the ridiculous nature of the video; he just told me to stop laughing and keep going.  
“Maybe we should take a break.” I ventured when I started to become too creeped out by the intensity of his foe manic stare and by some of the sacrilegious sayings slipping from his lips.  
“No, he won’t be pleased if we stop.”  
“This is meant to be just a joke remember.”  
He responded by turning back to the camera and continuing with the skit as if I hadn’t spoken.  
At a certain point in the video I began to feel a little strange, the heat in the flat seemed to intensify making me feel light headed; I felt if I didn’t grip onto the edge of the table I would float right out of my chair and into the celling.  
“We need to stop.” I tried to tell him but my tongue felt heavy in my mouth and my eyelids no longer wanted to remain open. “Stop please.”  
He was chanting something now but his words were obscured by a rumbling in my ears. There was a smell of burning in the air but I found I didn’t have the energy to care anymore. My eyes shut firmly and my head bowed to meet the table in front of me. I slipped into darkness.  
My trip into the darkness was brief, I remerged shortly after to the feeling of something cold and wet being pressed into the skin of my back and shoulders.  
I tentatively rose my head from the table sitting up straight in the chair. “What’s going on?” I asked, turning to my companion who stilled had the crazed look in his eyes and was clutching one of those stupid paint covered potatoes in his hands. I looked down to realise I had lost my shirt. “What are you doing!?” I demanded  
“Don’t shout, he won’t be pleased if we’re fighting.”  
“You need to drop this stupid act now, it’s gone too far.”  
“It’s too late. He’s already on his way.” A smile of pure excitement passed over his face but the resulting look was terrifying with his wild almost unblinking eyes.  
“What are you talking about?” Part of me was aware that I should be jumping out of my seat and turning off the camera, putting an end to this unfunny joke but I felt routed to the chair.  
“Can’t you hear him? He’ll be with us so soon. I’m so excited for you to meet him finally.”  
“Stop this.” I found myself straining to hear anything above the rushing in my ears but sure enough I could faintly hear the very slow, deliberate opening of our front door.  
“Don’t be afraid, he’s going to take us both with him. Away from all of this, away from everyone, we won’t have to worry about anything anymore.”  
“Please stop.” My voice was trembling now as the air around us seem to become heavy and oppressive again. I could hear heavy thuds in the hallway now making their way agonisingly slowly towards the room which we were in.  
“Don’t be nervous, he promised me it would be great; everything we’ve ever wanted. No judgment, no expectations. We can just be us without the eyes of the world on us.”  
“Stop.” I repeated as I attempted to stand but I suddenly couldn’t feel my legs anymore. The heavy footsteps still pounded on slowly in the ever decreasing distance.  
My companion was just babbling now, many words flowing rapidly out of his mouth, “I initially wasn’t going to involve you in this, after all it is me who has a chip on my shoulder about the state of the world. But he convinced me you should come too; he likes people like you. You see this way we can still be together. Best friends, with no one interfering.”  
I was either going to throw up or pass out or worse if I didn’t get out of this situation. I disregarded the fact that my legs no longer felt part of my body and tried to shove myself upwards into a standing position but the strong hand of my friend clamped down on my arm forcing me roughly back into the chair.  
“I’m sorry but you’ll soon see that I was right.” The excitement had faded from his features, leaving behind a blank, focused look. Before I knew it he had placed his other hand on the back of head and slammed it violently down onto the hard table. A multitude of bright flashes accompanied the deafening impact in my head. I fought against the darkness that was threatening to pull me back under immediately. I didn’t want to go there again. Something awful was waiting on the other side for me. I was barely aware that the kitchen door had opened and the heavy footsteps had halted. With all my strength I manged raise my wounded head from the table, through the warm blood slowly seeping down my face and into my eyes I could make out a pair of long thin legs standing in front of me, a pair of worn cowboy boots attached to their ends. My body suddenly transformed from feeling like it was made of concrete to feeling weightless as a cold unknown hand tapped my shoulder and pushed me back into a sitting position. I slumped against the back of the chair, my head and neck rolling backwards as I felt the malevolent figure take a step closer to me. The last thing I recall seeing as my eyes rolled towards the back of my head was a glimpse of a horrendously disfigured face covered in burns and scar tissue but grinning madly revealing multiple rows of sharp crooked teeth and the wide brim of the Stetson adorning its head. Then into the darkness I faded completely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
